Ecommerce website hosting is a large part of any business’s online services. If you have a product to sell, you need an ecommerce hosting plan that can be tailored to your website’s specific needs.

Ecommerce hosting is just a term to describe an online business website, where the primary function of that website is to sell goods or services. While many small ecommerce sites can be hosted on a shared server, most if not all of the big ones (such as Amazon.com, Shopzilla, Overstock.com, etc) are hosted on a dedicated web server or many dedicated servers clustered together.

There are several things you need to establish to run a successful ecommerce website, including:

* a reliable web host
* a Dedicated IP address
* an SSL certificate
* a Payment Gateway

Once you have all these things, you can begin to create your ecommerce website and watch the money start rolling in.

Having a large amount of RAM is important to any web hosting server but especially to any Dedicated Server Hosting plan.  RAM (or Random Access Memory) is basically computer data storage that allows a user to access any “memory” on the server.  The more RAM, the faster your server is going to run and the quicker your website will load.

So how much RAM do you need?  That depends what you’re planning to host.  If you require a Dedicated server to resell space like a Reseller and the sites under you are small or don’t require much CPU or bandwidth, you’ll likely be find with the default amount, while if you’re planning to become the next Myspace or will be on the front page of Digg often, you’ll want to look into adding more – remember, you can never have too much RAM!

If you’re looking into Virtual Private Servers (VPS), Lunarpages offers 512MB RAM guaranteed, which means your site is going to experience optimized performance from a Shared Server.

If you’re planning to go Dedicated, you should take the following things into consideration in choosing the amount of RAM you add to your server:

* How popular is your website bandwidth-wise?  High bandwidth sites require more RAM.
* Are you running a large database?
* Are you running CPU-intensive scripts?

Are you planning to run a legal adult website?  Are you finding that it’s extremely difficult to find a web host who allows adult content?  Even when you do find a host, is your adult server too expensive?

These are all common problems for businesses running adult websites and looking for an adult web host.  The most difficult part of running your adult site is often finding a reliable, affordable dedicated web host to host your business.  The next step is understanding what is allowed and what is not.

What You Need:

* Plenty of hard drive space and bandwidth!  If you are running a successful adult website on a dedicated server, you are going to see a great deal of traffic and you cannot exist on a shared server.

* Uptime – 99.9% uptime is standard.

* Managed Hosting – make sure your site is taken care of 24/7/365

* IP Address – you’ll need this for SEO (search engine optimization) and to process online payments

What You Should Ask:

Make sure you ask your future provider the following questions:

• Do you allow legal adult content?
• What are your rules on adult content?
• Do you charge extra to host adult content?

You will definitely want to be on a Dedicated Server Hosting plan if you are running an adult website.  Try our recommend dedicated host for quality adult webhosting at an affordable price.

Way back in 2008 we posted this coupon for a saving on dedicated hosting and guess what?  It still works!!!

Thanks to the kind people at Lunarpages Dedicated Hosting (LPDedicated.com) we have a fantastic coupon that provides $55 off any 3, 6 or 12 month dedicated hosting plan at LPDedicated!

To redeem this coupon code, click here

The coupon code for dedicatedserverhosting.com visitors is DSH

Expiry date: unknown

Please comment here and let us know if you can find a better dedicated hosting coupon!

Legal adult web hosting requires specialized hosting services and using shared resources with a basic web host just won’t cut it?

Chances are, you are finding it almost impossible to locate a web host who allows adult content and most likely when you do, the cost is outrageous.

These are all common problems for businesses running adult websites and looking for an adult web host.  The most challenging part of running your adult site is often finding a reliable, affordable dedicated web host to host your adult business.

So what is allowed and what is not?

* STACKS of hard drive space and bandwidth!  If you are running a successful adult website on a dedicated server, you are going to see a great deal of traffic and you cannot exist on a shared server.

* Uptime – 99.9% – you want your site online always, especially if you are running a paid business.

* Managed Hosting – make sure your site is taken care of 24/7/365

* IP Address – you will require this for SEO (search engine optimization), your secure certificate to allow you to process online payments

Ask these questions:

• Do you allow adult content?
• What are your rules on adult content?
• Do you charge extra to host adult content?

As mentioned earlier, you want to be/are required to be hosted on a Dedicated Server Hosting plan if you are running an adult website.  Be sure to check out our recommend dedicated host for quality adult webhosting at an affordable price.

We have discussed managed web hosting before and even if you are comfortable in a dedicated server environment, really, why wouldn’t you ask your web host to manage the server for you when they are so low cost?

If you are aware of what managing a dedicated server entails will help you understand if it’s something you will need to include in your dedicated server purchase.  Finding affordable managed hosting solutions can be difficult.  We recommend choosing carefully.

Any reputable dedicated hosting provider should offer Managed Hosting.

Lunarpages or LPDedicated offer various levels of Managed Hosting.

Managed Hosting Lite

Managed Lite starts at less than $10 per month and we will monitor your server 24/7/365.

Managed Hosting Intense

Our Intense Managed option for $39.99 per month not only assures you that your server is in good hands but is also an affordable solution for every webmaster and includes the following features:

* Free setup of APF Firewall and Root Kit Check on the server
* Up to date notifications of exploits on popular third party software
* Upgrades of kernels, php, apache and administration panels for security per user authorization (we will send notice and you can decide if you want the upgrade to be performed)
* Monitoring of your server through Lunarpages’ internal monitoring tools
* Unlimited reboots of your server if it becomes unresponsive
* One free third party script installation per billing year
* Free installation of upgraded control panel
* Free installation of Resin if needed
* Free setup of remote backups

Managed Hosting Ultra

The Next Generation in Managed Services: $149.00 a month, available on Dedicated III, Mega and High Performance Plans.

Managed Software Backup (R1soft):

* Internally Managed disk to disk backups (50gb included)
* 2 week onsite retention

Firewall:

* Cisco ASA 5505

Managed Hosting Services:

* Free setup of APF Firewall and Root Kit Check on the server
* Up to date notifications of exploits on popular third party software
* Upgrades of kernels, php, apache and administration panels for security per user authorization (we will send notice and you can decide if you want the upgrade to be performed)
* One free third party script installation per billing year
* Free installation of upgraded control panel
* Free installation of Resin if needed
* Unlimited reboots
* 24x7x365 Phone and Help Desk support
* Same Day Hardware Replacement Guarantee
* Dedicated Support staff
* Access to Lunarpages customer account page:
o Ticket Manager
o Reboots
o Bandwidth
o Knowledgebase
o Billing Options

Remember!  Be sure to check if your web host offers Managed on their dedicated server plans!

Buying a dedicated server is a big purchase and this is the backbone of your online presence, so it is vital to phone or email the web hosts you are considering with some questions, prior to forking out hundreds of dollars.

Here are our top 10 suggested questions:

1. How long before my Dedicated Server is available to use?
2. Why should I choose your company to host my website?
3. Do you have 24/7 phone support?
4. Where will my server be located?
5. Do you provide backups for free?
6. How secure is my server?
7. What is the contract duration I am committing to?
8. Is there a money back guarantee and how long is it?
9. Can I upgrade or downgrade and will I incur penalties for this?
10. Linus or Windows?

We recommend Lunarpages Dedicated Web Hosting! Call or email them and see how they score with our top 10 questions

If you are planning to become your own web hosting company, are looking to resell web hosting space for profit, and/or would like to provide hosting to your clients at some point in the future, you are going to need to know the differences between the types of hosting you can purchase.

Reseller Hosting is a low-cost but low-resource hosting plan, wherein you become your own web hosting company. Your clients are each given control panels of their own and you are allowed to brand these to suit your company’s image, so that your customers will never know they are hosting with the provider you’re using as a Reseller. The downside for this usually affordable hosting plan is that your customers go to you, as the web host, for billing and technical issues. They cannot simply email the big web host to get assistance, as they wouldn’t even know the bigger host exists. Another downside is the limits on storage and bandwidth – you cannot itemize how many resources you a lot to each customer. All customers get the same storage, bandwidth, emails, etc.

Dedicated Server Hosting is often much more expensive, but if you have a long list of clients to host, you can often make a greater profit from Dedicated Hosting than from Reseller Hosting, because you are only paying for one plan as opposed to paying for 50 small reseller accounts. With Dedicated Server Hosting, you can also a lot storage and bandwidth amounts to each specific customer, based on your quote of storage and bandwidth. So if you have 80GB hard drive space, you can give one customer 1GB and another 5GB, making each customer happy. You can also brand the control panel to your company’s image, as well as create your own nameservers, which will make your company look even more official.

Overall, Dedicated Server Hosting is best for companies who need a great deal of storage and bandwidth or have many customers in need of reliable hosting.

Why choose dedicated over VPS?

• VPSs (Virtual Private Servers) allows hardware to run at a higher utilization rate.
• Management issues as VPS requires more Ethernet cables, networking and switches.
• Hardware can run at a higher utilization rate with VPS.
• Disk I/O performance may back up due to additional disk frags.
• Vulnerabilities are more common and involved with VPS.
• It is time consuming and not efficient to manage many IP addresses.
• There are sometimes software licensing advantages when running VPS.
• It can be challenging to make backups of one or two versions of less mainstream software and programs.
• They are cheaper since usually they have less power costs than one physical server.
• VPS need costly drivers like multi-port network adapters.
• VPS are more affordable requiring less power than one dedicated server.
• It is difficult to manage large number of IP addresses, MAC addresses etc
• VPS overhead is less than 5% on some modern visualization software like Virtuozzo.
• Maintaining a VPS is still more costly and patching all virtual servers with various operating systems on many physical servers requires their own maintenance.

It looks like the answer is Dedicated Web Hosting!  Check out LPDedicated.com, Lunarpages Web Hosting’s brand of dedicated affordable solutions

There are several things that should always come into consideration when shopping for a new dedicated hosting server.  There are thousands of review web sites, and not all of them are looking out for your best interest. 

Here are a few tips to remember next time you are reading dedicated hosting reviews:

• Remember that negative experiences leave a longer lasting impression than positive ones.  People will always complain before they admit a service is good.
• Some reviews might be paid for or done by the web host themselves.  Always watch out for reviews that are too good to be true.
• Don’t be suckered into a good deal without checking out some real opinions first.  Coupons are nice, but quality service is even better.
• Start with a large list of hosts you might want to work with, and narrow your list down.  It can sometimes take days or weeks to find the right host for you.  Don’t get in a hurry.

Hope some of these come in handy for you the next time you are reading through dedicated hosting reviews on one of the many hosting review sites out there.